The disclosures herein relate generally to portable computers and more particularly to an adaptor for interconnecting a processor board to a motherboard.
In the manufacture of portable computers, certain processing capabilities are provided. These capabilities change periodically with updates providing different and/or expanded capabilities such as a different speed or an Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP). The AGP is a high performance, component level interconnect intended to enhance graphics performance and three dimensional (3D) graphics applications in particular.
Initially, manufacturers purchased a chip on a tape carrier to connect to the motherboard. The trend then turned to a "daughterboard" configuration called a processor module, pin connected directly to the motherboard and including a processor, associated circuitry, a heat transfer plate to remove heat from the processor, part of the chip set known as a Northbridge module, and connectors. The Northbridge module controls the main memory, secondary cache, peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus, a central processing unit (CPU) and an AGP.
New features or capabilities are sometimes offered in modules smaller than the processor module configuration which can be referred to as processor boards. These smaller modules typically include a CPU and an adjacent heat transfer plate and are pin connected to the motherboard. Other circuit features, usually provided on the processor module, are located elsewhere in the system. Showers,technologies may skip from processor modules to processor boards and vice versa. This requires a new motherboard configuration for each update of these modules. Also, manufacturers who have system designs structured around utilizing processor modules which include Northbridge modules, will not be able to provide AGP capable systems without significant delay. Also, some manufacturers prefer processor boards over the daughterboards including the Northbridge modules.
Therefore, what is needed is an apparatus and a method of connecting the changing updated versions of the processor board to the motherboard without having to change the motherboard to accommodate each updated version, or alternatively, connecting a processor module directly to the same motherboard, and accomplishing both without compromising the geometry and location of the heat transfer plate.